Apparitions
by Chaoslace
Summary: Post DA2. The Circles are breaking and the templars left scattered. Ser Cullen is desperate in the throes of lyrium withdrawal, and he ends up placing his life in the hands of a woman with a painfully familiar face. Cullen/W!Bethany, inspired by kmeme.
1. Chapter 1: Vertigo

**Author's note:** This is a response to a kinkmeme prompt that got stuck in my head: "For some reason or another, Cullen is unable to take any more lyrium and goes into a serious withdrawal and somebody helps him through it. " Spoilers ahead for the end of DA2. Rated M for adult content, eventually.

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><p>For the third day in a row, Cullen stood on the edge of the high wall around Lowtown and contemplated jumping. He set one booted foot on the stone lip, twisting his heel and listening to the gravel crunch under his toe. A practiced flick sent rocks and grit skittering to the ground to toss up a puff of dust far below. For a moment he almost felt at peace as he imagined his own body tumbling through the nothingness, weightless.<p>

Then, as it always did, the headache came back.

Cullen had fought a great many battles in his service as a templar. He had suffered almost every injury imaginable; a broken wrist from overextending his weapon, a shattered collarbone from the crush of a shield with brutal force behind it, latticeworks of electrical burns across his body from a particularly vicious apostate. And of course, there had been the demons, Uldred's monsters who had done far worse and burned him in places you couldn't see, and would never heal. None of it compared to the pain and anguish of lyrium withdrawal, of slowly losing your mind and your soul to the black hole left behind by that magical dust. None of it compared to knowing it was only a matter of time before you were nothing but a desiccated husk of a man inside of your gorgeous, shining armor.

Not that he even had any armor left. He'd sold it weeks ago to buy food and shelter. Soon enough that money would be gone too, and he'd be begging on the streets like so many of his former brothers.

He toed another stone over the edge and wished that he wasn't such a bloody _coward_.

The Circles were breaking all over Thedas, the Chantry locked in the ecstatic throes of revolution. Kirkwall's templars were scattered and forgotten like so much dust in the wind, like the entrails of a ritual sacrifice left to rot on the killing stone. Those that could buy passage to Val Royeaux would find at least temporary asylum before the storm reached them. Those that could afford lyrium to support their habit had the luxury to disappear and erase the truth of their past. Everyone else - and there were so many, good men and bad - was left to go mad and die a shadow, unseen and unheard by anyone.

Some of the men had come from rich families, had support and a safe haven and endless gold to keep themselves sane. Not so with Cullen. He was nothing but a chantry mouse, a sheltered little boy who had been kicked out of his only home with no knowledge of the world at large. He had no name, no family, no kinship but the brotherhood that had gone up in shuddering magical flames in one fateful moment. And he certainly had no money.

Ser Cullen of Nobody, sentenced to die because he couldn't afford to live.

A sudden shock of pain lanced across his temple and he fell to his knees with a moan. The world flashed and swam before his eyes, the towers and soaring banners bending in sickening ways around an impossible new gravity. He felt himself lurch toward the edge with a rush of vertigo, and only stopped himself from tumbling over it by throwing himself backwards onto his tailbone with a nauseating crunch. He winced and bit down against the jarring pain, boots scrambling over stone to push him back from the sheer drop. He panted, hot and cold shocks running through his veins as he realized how close he had come to ending his life.

He closed his eyes and pressed his palms against them until he only see searing white behind his eyelids. The staggering pain in his head slowly subsided, retreating to its normal dull pulsing while his ragged breathing slowed and became regular again. When he opened his eyes, he was relieved to see the world was all right again, the towers pointing upward as they should and the banners trailing nobly towards the sun.

And then he turned his head and saw _her_.

His breath caught in his throat and he stared, unwilling to even blink for fear that she might disappear. He knew it was another hallucination, knew it because she was _gone_, because all of Ferelden knew she was gone and this could not possibly be real. And yet, there she was, sitting cross-legged in her apprentice robes and looking at him with that queer little grin, her head tilted in that way that always reminded him of a bird. Her hair was raven black and still long, gathered at the nape of her neck just like he remembered it. Her amber eyes were as bright and alive as they had been the day he first saw her - so young, so long ago.

(Never did she come to his dreams as she was when he last saw her, her lovely hair cropped and her eyes clouded with sadness and pain and all the years she had grown in so short a time. The thick, armored Warden robes were so impossibly heavy on her small frame. The robes and everything else.)

"You're dead," he finally said, his voice flat.

"And you're talking to yourself," she shot back, annoyance flickering across her features. "Now can we please stop pointing out each other's shortcomings?"

He opened and shut his mouth a few times. He had to admit she had him there.

"My madness _has_ taken less pleasing forms," he mused. "Maybe it wouldn't hurt to indulge this one for a while."

She smiled and shook her head slightly. "Flatterer," she teased. "You always were too nice to be a templar."

"And you were too sweet to be a dangerous killing machine."

A shadow passed over her face and he instantly regretted saying it. "Well, we both know I changed."

He looked away, running one thumb nervously over the rough line of his jaw. "Yeah. I did too."

They sat in silence for a while, each regarding the other with a strange combination of affection and wariness. When he spoke, the noise disturbed a pair of nearby pigeons who leapt away in a heavy beating of wings.

"Amell..." She closed her eyes against the way he said her name, soft as a prayer. "Are you a hallucination, or a vision? The fevered fantasy of a dying man, or... could it be that the Maker has really given me a few last moments with you?"

She chewed her lip for a long time before answering. "I don't know," she said apologetically. "Does it really matter?"

He shook his head wordlessly. It didn't matter. He would take this, like he never did when those monsters showed her to him, tempted him with promises of a life he would never have. He had resisted and resisted and resisted no matter what they did to him because he was a good man, a _better_ man, and he had made _promises_ that he intended to keep. But by the Maker, he had nothing left and he would take this.

She felt so real when he closed his arms around her that he nearly wept in relief and joy. Her thin shoulders trembled under his touch and he felt that she, too, was struggling with the overwhelming feelings of rightness in this embrace. One of her hands, still unscarred and soft as a lily, ran down the side of his face as she looked at him with heartbreaking tenderness.

"You don't have to die, Cullen," she said so faintly it was almost like the wind. "There is a way out."

He buried his nose in her hair. "All I want is this. It's all I've ever wanted."

She took him by the shoulders and pushed him back so she could look him in the eyes. Tears were running down her cheeks, and he felt himself caught in the amber depths of her eyes like a fly caught in honey. "I wish I could give it to you," she whispered. "But I've used my time and now I'm gone." She wiped her cheek with one hand and steeled her gaze. "You are not. You still have a chance in this world and I'm not just going to watch you throw it away."

Cullen grimaced. "I don't have a choice. The lyrium -"

"You do have a choice." She gave him one last, lingering look, and he noticed that she was beginning to fade. "You have the same choice I did."

He cried out and tried to grab hold of her, tried to pull her back into his arms, but she was gone, leaving only the cold and dark of the setting sun.


	2. Chapter 2: Calling

Bethany Hawke was pissed off.

Not that there was anything unusual about that. She spent most of her time pissed off these days. Horrible, gut-wrenching nightmares and a drastically shortened lifespan will do that to you. At the moment, she was pissed off at Stroud and Balder, who had given her all of two days' rest before turning her right around again and ordering her out to kill an emissary who had slaughtered a half dozen villagers and was now hiding in a cave.

Great. Just great.

Of course, she would never _dare_ to suggest that being a Grey Warden was anything but the cat's pajamas. What girl wouldn't want to spend her prime dating years covered in toxic darkspawn blood and bunking with a bunch of exiles and vagabonds who had been dredged up from who knows where by opportunistic recruiters? Not to mention that being one of the only mages in her branch of the organization made her a valuable commodity. She had long since given up on the notion that she could get some kind of desk job.

The job did have its perks, though. She could throw fireballs at whatever she wanted and no one could say a word to her about it.

And really, what problem couldn't be solved by a well-placed fireball?

She was in her room, bitterly stuffing still-rumpled traveling clothes into her pack, when a knock came at the door.

"What?" she called harshly.

The door swung open to reveal the familiar bulk of Commander Stroud. He was dressed casually in his leathers and, judging from the way he was sucking at his teeth, he had just come from dinner.

Maker, but that was an obnoxious habit. She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "Yes?"

Stroud, well practiced at ignoring her hostility, cocked his hip and leaned against the doorframe. He nodded towards the pack on her bed. "What are you doing?"

She looked at him like he'd just sprouted wings from his butt. "I'm packing. For the mission you ordered me to go on. We just spent a half hour arguing about it."

He looked back impassively. "I'm changing your orders. Put your things away. Canta and Juli will deal with the emissary."

Bethany gaped. For a moment, she wasn't sure exactly what to do, given that the thing that was making her so mad had suddenly been pulled out from under her. She plopped down on the bed, deflated. "Oh."

Stroud stepped into the room and let the heavy wooden door fall shut behind him. He pulled a chair away from her desk and sat down across from her. Bethany regarded him warily as he pushed a stubborn lock of hair out of his eyes and gave her a look that could almost be described as sheepish.

"I have a project for you," he said. "We have a new recruit and I need you to work with him to prepare him for the Joining."

She frowned. "Why me? That's Balder's job." Balder was the oldest of the Wardens in their unit, probably only a year or two away from his Calling. He was wise and respected, and had a way with people that most of them couldn't muster. He'd been in charge of recruiting for as long as she'd been there.

"That's true, but this recruit needs something Balder cannot give him." He hesitated, then sighed. "He will need the help of a mage. To overcome an… addiction."

Understanding started to dawn in her mind, and she didn't like where it was going. "What kind of addiction?"

The older man coughed and gave her an apologetic look. "Lyrium."

A templar. Her cheeks burned at the mere thought of calling one of those overbearing tin cans "Brother." She sat forward and narrowed her eyes. "To hell with that. I won't do it."

"It is not your decision to make, Bethany." His eyes were soft but his voice growled a warning. "Do not try my patience."

"Are we that desperate for recruits now, that we're taking the lyrium-addled castoffs of the Chantry?"

"He's a highly skilled warrior, and the Joining could save him from the destruction of his mind."

"Being a Grey Warden is not a cure, it is a calling!" she snapped back at him, her voice suddenly forceful. "Isn't that what you said to me, all these years ago?"

He looked back at her, his expression unreadable. "And yet I took you in then, as I take him in now. It was not an act of mercy. You know this better than anyone."

Bethany sagged. "I know," she sighed. Undergoing the Joining had saved her life, but even now she was not sure it had been worth the cost.

The chair squeaked as he got to his feet. "I will not force you to do this thing. But if you do not, he will most likely die. He cannot undergo the Joining until the lyrium has been purged from his system. It would react with the darkspawn blood and I am not willing to see what he could turn into."

She looked up at him. "I'm not even sure I can do it," she admitted. "I have no Circle teachings. What if I try and fail?"

He gave her a tender look, then, that somehow disarmed her completely. "I asked myself the same thing when we agreed to take you, child. Sometimes we must face death to earn our place in this world. You made that choice, and so has he." He reached out to touch her shoulder, his large hand impossibly gentle, then turned to leave her alone in her room.

She sat in silence for a while before flopping back onto her bed with a groan. "Fucking _templars_."


	3. Chapter 3: Power

The Warden compound in Cumberland was small but busy. Cullen had seen at least a half dozen Wardens come and go, grim-faced in their battleworn, unpolished armor. He was kept separate from the other recruits, a pair of wary-looking dwarves who spent most of their time in hushed conference with each other. His tiny cell was sparsely furnished and he strongly suspected that at one point it had been used for captives.

Still, all things considered, he was doing all right. He had arrived several days earlier much the worse for wear and nearly delirious. He left Kirkwall with as much lyrium as the remainder of his savings would buy him, which turned out to be almost, but not quite, enough to get him through the journey to the compound. An older man had found him collapsed on the road, or at least he thought that was what had happened. Presumably the man had been a Warden or understood something of his ramblings, because he had awoken in the infirmary with a fresh dose of lyrium in his blood and blessed silence inside his skull.

Deep orange sunlight filtered into the room through a tiny window set high up on the wall. Judging from the angle of the light, it was nearly time for Balder's nightly visit. So far it was the only real contact he'd had with the Wardens, most of whom never bothered to give him a second look. He got the sense that the older Warden was evaluating him, testing to see if he was fit to be a recruit or if they would leave him to die screaming in his cell.

The room grew warm, the air uncomfortably still. He sat back on his cot and pushed his mess of curly hair back from his face. It was getting shamefully long, and with a week-old beard he knew that he didn't look much like carefully groomed knight he had been. Beads of sweat tickled his neck and he sighed, feeling utterly wretched and disgusting.

He hoped Balder would come soon. He itched for the conversation and the small vial of lyrium that he would bring. Every day he got two drops administered onto his eager tongue, just enough to keep the headaches and nightmares at bay.

_I guess they want me lucid when I face the Joining_, he thought grimly. Balder had told him little enough about the ritual, but he understood enough to know that it was dangerous, something no man should face without a clear mind and honest intent.

The sun continued to set, and he grew restless as he watched the long shadows slide across the floor. The itch was getting worse, turning into a yearning need he couldn't shut off. He got to his feet and looked around for something to do.

"Calm yourself, Cullen," he said to himself. "He's coming, just be calm."

He paced back and forth in the tiny space, hardly more than a few steps from the threadbare cot to the basin to the plain wooden table and chair that comprised the furnishings of the room. Unthinking, his hands started to rub together of their own accord, the unsated urge rising unbidden to form a fluttering mass in his chest.

He kept at it, counting the steps in each tiny circuit like a mantra, until the sun was almost completely gone and he was forced to light his lantern with shaking hands.

Despair had almost taken him when a knock came at the door and he all but jumped out of his skin.

"Balder?" he cried out eagerly, moving to the door faster than he would have thought possible. Some part of him reeled in disgust at being this man, waiting like a dog for a treat from his master, but he could not be anything else. He was a slave to this need.

The door opened slowly and the abundant torchlight from the corridor flooded into the dimly lit room. He took a step back when he realized that the shape silhouetted by that light was much smaller than Barden, and most definitely female.

Some of his awareness came back and he self-consciously smoothed his sweat-soaked hair back. "Hello," he said lamely. "I, uh… would have shaved, but I don't think they normally keep razor blades in this room." _Where's Balder?_ he added mentally, biting his tongue against the desperate outburst._Where's my lyrium?_

When the woman stepped forward and he could see her face clearly, he breathed a sigh of relief and sagged back. "Oh, it's just you. And here I thought I was incredibly unpresentable for a lady. Not," he added hastily, waved his hands. "That you aren't a lady. It's just… well, since you're a hallucination and all, why should we be so concerned about appearances?" He flopped onto the cot and suppressed the urge to giggle hysterically.

The raven-haired mage gave him an uncharacteristically loathing look before turning to close the door behind her. "Wonderful. I see you're already delirious. That will make this whole experience _so_ very much more exciting, won't it."

She pulled a wooden chair away from the table and sat down with heavy sigh. Cullen studied her curiously. This wasn't how things normally went. His dream-Amell was young and sweet, fair and delicate. The one sitting across from him now was none of those things. She was older, angrier, and tanned in a way Circle mages never were. He folded his arms and glared at her suspiciously.

"This isn't right. You look like hell," he said, his voice thin and paranoid. "Not like my dreams. Are you a nightmare? A demon?" His eyes narrowed and he set his jaw stubbornly. Ser Cullen knew what to do with demons. "I bet you're really a demon. You aren't fooling me, vixen!"

Not-Amell snorted and shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "I hardly think you're one to talk. You look like a shaved yak's ass and smell even worse."

"That just proves it!" he cried triumphantly. "My Amell would never use such language." She was a _proper_lady, even when the whole world was horrible and she had to carry it all with her.

He opened his mouth to continue carrying on about her flaws, but the look on her face stopped him cold. She stared back at him, lips slightly parted and something between anger and grief in her eyes. "How… how do you know my mother's name?"

He just blinked and looked at her.

A heartbeat later she was across the room, her hand at his throat and a familiar energy crackling across his skin. "Tell me how you know that name, templar." She spat the word like a curse.

Cullen narrowed his eyes and the faintest curl of a smile touched his lips. Oh, he was a broken man, he knew that, a slave to the thirst for magical dust that claimed all templars in the end. But even still, he knew he could beat Amell, had always known it even as he fell in love with her. It was a hungry thought that came to him in the dark of night, that fed his most shameful fantasies in which he had her and owned her and robbed her of the power that always took her away from him.

His wrist snapped up, his well-trained reflexes still good and his arm strong as he gripped her hand tightly. Her magic swelled but he was ready for it, his mind a void that sucked her power from her and transformed the deadly surge into the merest tickle of electricity against his neck. Rage flared in her eyes and he felt a twinge of lust and pride at knowing that he had won, that he would always win because he was a templar and she was a mage.

He was about to pull her savagely down onto the bed when he heard the crack of her staff on his skull, and the rest was darkness.


	4. Chapter 4: Bound

Bethany may have been a mage, but she was also a Grey Warden, and she knew how to truss up a grown man when she needed to. Granted, the templar was remarkably heavy and it had taken her a few tries to drag him into the chair, but she managed it well enough to bind his wrists and ankles to the sturdy piece of furniture. She stood in front of him and allowed herself a triumphant moment before slapping him hard across the face.

The recruit sputtered awake with a dazed moan. His eyes cast about in vague confusion before landing on her face, where they lingered with a curiously tender expression that suddenly changed to panic. "You tied me up!" he exclaimed indignantly. He unwisely thrashed against his bonds and she suppressed a laugh at the grimace of pain that followed. "Sweet Maker, and I thought my head hurt before."

Bethany smoothed down the rough blankets on the cot and sat down. She draped one casually threatening hand over the staff in her lap. The faintest hint of a smile played on her lips, but her gaze was hard. "Next time you won't be so quick to assume all mages are as defenseless as the ones you keep chained up in that tower."

"Kept," he corrected her, his voice strangely flat. She remained alert, halfway expecting him to try to break the bonds; he was clearly well-muscled and there was a chance he might actually succeed. Besides, when did templars ever give anything up? She'd heard stories of them tracking apostates for leagues, dangling the little phylactery in front of themselves like a carrot on a string.

But he made no attempt to free himself. In fact, the way he slumped in the chair, his head bowed, almost seemed as though he had accepted it. Deserved it, even.

_Well,_ she thought. _He does._

His gaze slipped away from hers and she regarded him carefully. He wasn't bad-looking, under all that sweat and grime. His straw-colored hair was long and tousled, with curls that flopped over his ears and brow when his head moved. He needed a shave, but his jaw was strong and his eyes the color of caramel. And in the plain, simple clothing he wore it was clear that Stroud had not been exaggerating the man's strength. He had the broad, hard frame of a man who had worn heavy armor every day for ten years.

Something suddenly tugged at her, something about his features that seemed vaguely familiar.

"You're from Kirkwall, aren't you?" she asked, leaning forward. "I remember your face." It had been a lifetime ago, but she still knew the faces of every templar in Kirkwall. And Lothering, for that matter. _What a talent,_ she sighed to herself. _Bethany Hawke's legacy to the apostates of the world. A list of people to run away from._

The recruit lifted his head to meet her gaze. His eyes seemed calmer than before, less crazed, but he was clearly still struggling to maintain control. "My name is Cullen," he said with a nod. "I was the Knight-Captain in Kirkwall before… well, before."

Bethany didn't need him to finish that thought. She was well aware of the fantastic cock-up her sister had made of that whole situation, but then again, what _were_ the Hawke girls if not destructive?

"You called me Amell," she said. "Did you know my Uncle Gamlen?" That had to be it, unless her late mother had been up to something she preferred not to think about.

He looked back at her intently for a moment and she found herself wanting to squirm under the intensity of his gaze. He blinked and shook his head suddenly as if waking from a dream. "No," he replied with a sigh. "I… thought you were someone else. Someone I knew a long time ago. You look very much like her."

He took a deep breath that hitched suddenly in his throat. His eyes clouded and his features twisted as a wave of sickness passed over him. He moaned and his head rolled back. Bethany watched him gasp and writhe for several minutes, internally battling with the withdrawal of the lyrium from his system. It was almost enough to inspire pity in the woman, if she had any left to give.

She sighed inwardly. She had stalled enough. As much as she might want to sit here and watch him suffer, he might actually survive the Joining and if Stroud heard that she had tied him up and tortured him she would sorely regret it. She reached into her robe and produced a small silvered vial filled with a glowing blue elixir. It was powerful, extremely concentrated lyrium from her own personal supply, something she carried with her for emergencies and hoped she never had to use.

The Warden mage got to her feet and took a step forward to stand in front of him. She held the vial where he could see it, but left it just beyond his reach. His eyes locked onto the small object with a hunger so fierce, so blatant that it sent shivers down her spine. _It's the lyrium he wants,_ she scolded herself, all too aware of how long it had been since a man last looked at her that way.

"Recruit Cullen," she said, her voice oddly formal. "Every prospective Warden must undergo a quest to prepare for their Joining. Your quest will be to cleanse this addiction, and the prize will be your life."

She lowered her eyes to the vial in her hand. "This is the last dose of lyrium you will receive. If you choose to take it, you will not be allowed to leave this room until I report to Stroud that you are completely clean. If you do not, you may leave the compound and seek salvation or death elsewhere. Do you understand?"

He nodded wordlessly, never taking his eyes from the lyrium. She deliberately hesitated, waiting until his gaze slid up to hers, reveling in the silent pleading she saw there.

After all those years of running, all those years of fear, who would have thought Bethany Hawke would ever have power over a templar? The Maker certainly does work in mysterious ways, and she was determined to enjoy every moment of this one.

She uncorked the vial and swirled one finger in the viscous liquid. The magic in her body, still quite drained from that incredibly annoying templar maneuver earlier, practically hummed in response to the touch of that slick, sweet substance. She withdrew her coated finger and brought it to her smirking lips as she held Cullen's gaze with her own.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she sucked her finger clean, her eyes fluttering shut at the exquisite sensation of magical energy returning to her body.

Cullen gave a strangled groan and she suppressed a sadistic laugh. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard Stroud telling her not to play with her prey.

She removed her finger from the warm suction of her mouth with a quiet _pop_. She swirled it again in the lyrium, but this time she leaned forward and presented it to him. "Suck," she ordered.

Everything she would have to do over the next several weeks to keep him alive suddenly became incredibly worth it as she watched the man battle with his own pride. She felt another thrill of power, just as dizzying as the lyrium had been.

When he finally gave in, she gasped at the force of his mouth on her finger. He sucked and laved it with his tongue until she felt an uncontrollable pang of desire that threatened to buckle her knees. She jerked her hand back and when she met his eyes again she saw the faintest glint of satisfaction there.

"Good," she said in a low voice. "Do you feel better now?"

He gave her a hard look. "Very much, thank you."

She corked the lyrium vial and put it back into her robe, surprised to find her hands shaking slightly. She clenched her jaw and willed them to be still. "As you no doubt know, lyrium isn't as harmful to those of us with the 'gift' of magic. This is the mechanism we'll use to protect your mind while the lyrium is purged from your system. This is why I was called to help you with your quest."

Cullen straightened his shoulders. "You'll shield me with magic?"

"No," Bethany said plainly. "I'll give it to you."

His mouth opened as if to protest, but no sound came out. After a moment he closed it and looked thoughtfully to one side. "That… would technically be possible, wouldn't it? Using the templar discipline, I could be a… proxy of sorts, for your power."

She gave him a wry grin. "In theory, yes. Of course, I'm not Circle trained, so the ritual to share my power with you could go horribly wrong and you'd wind up a toad, or worse."

He glowered at her. "You could have mentioned that _before_ I agreed to spend the next three weeks locked in this room, you know."

"Oh, did I leave that part out? Oops! Silly me."

He sighed. "It's the only chance I have, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "I'm afraid it is. You're not going to find a Circle mage just wandering around, totally willing to help save a former templar."

"Then we'll just have to try."

Bethany nodded and bent to pick up her staff. "We'll start tomorrow. Thanks to that little stunt you pulled I'm going to need to rest before I have the energy to perform the ritual." She stepped towards the door.

"Hey!" he called out, his forehead creased in irritation. "You're just going to leave me like this all night?"

She looked over her shoulder with a grin and a wink. "You're a big man, Cullen. I'm sure you'll get out of those ties eventually." And with that, she left him alone in the room and locked the door from the outside.

He seethed quietly for several minutes before cursing to the empty room. "Maker take every woman bearing the name Amell!"


	5. Chapter 5: Ritual

Cullen was seated on the edge of his cot, rubbing life back to his tender wrists, when the Warden returned the next morning. She glanced at the pile of kindling that used to be his chair and quirked an appreciative eyebrow.

"You aren't the sort of man who gives up easily, are you?" she commented with a note of amusement.

He glowered at her and said nothing. He'd been up most of the night freeing himself from that humiliating bondage. Whatever he had to face today, he'd face it exhausted and sore. She knew that, and still she'd inflicted this spiteful punishment on him.

Never mind the tiny voice that told him he deserved it. Never mind the even tinier one that said he _liked_ being left to suffer with the thrill of lyrium in his blood - and it had been the best sodding lyrium he'd ever had - and a raging hard-on with naught but his memories to satisfy him. When he had finally broken the ties around his wrists the first thing he'd done was stroke himself to a violent climax, thoughts of demons and mages and that sweet blue dust filling his skull.

He hated himself in those moments, yet they came anyway, like a song he couldn't get out of his head.

The Warden had her back to him as she unpacked a small bag on the table. "Here," she called and tossed a bundle over her shoulder to him. He unwrapped it and discovered it was a loaf of bread with some cold cuts and cheese. He hadn't realized how famished he'd been until he tore into it, barely stopping to chew.

She snorted. "You'll make a good Warden. You already eat like a pig." His shoulders fell in remembered shame and he forced himself to take smaller bites and keep the crumbs out of his beard.

"You never told me your name," he said, when he was finished and discretely licking the meat juices from his fingers. His voice was painfully gruff to his ears and he went to the basin to fetch himself some water.

She looked at him warily. "It's Bethany," she replied.

"Bethany Amell?" he splashed water over his face and tried to sound as casual as possible.

Her eyes narrowed. "No. Used to be Hawke, now just Bethany. Wardens have no titles or family names."

He looked up and quirked an eyebrow. Hawke, eh? That explained a lot. Slowly, the pieces came together in his head; the uncanny resemblance, her abrasive attitude, the abuses she inflicted on him. He had known her sister, everyone did, but not this Bethany; it was a curiosity that he would have liked to ask her about but a warning look told him there was no use pressing further about it.

"All right, Warden Bethany." He held out his hands palms up as if in offering. The first sliver of morning light peeked in through the high window and illuminated the floor at his feet. "What do we do now?"

She moved to reveal the array of supplies on the table. Cullen glanced over the items. Some he recognized from his time in the Circle, and some were unknown to him. They seemed to be ritual components mostly; a handful of dried herbs, a leather-bound book, a pair of enchanted stones, and most precious of all, a tiny pouch of pure lyrium dust. He could _feel_ it there, humming sweetly to him like a lullaby. He licked his lips.

"I... didn't know the Wardens had those kind of resources to spend on recruits," he said, the note of surprise in his voice quite genuine. He couldn't pull his gaze away from the pouch. That much dust could keep him in potions for a month.

Bethany frowned and an unreadable emotion passed over her features. "You can thank Stroud. He... pulled in a favor for this. A life for a life, he said."

Cullen frowned. "Which life?"

"Mine," she said briskly. "Ages ago. I contracted the taint in the Deep Roads. It was the mage Anders who brought me to Stroud and convinced him to save my life."

The mage Anders. A name everyone in the Free Marches now knew. A name that had tumbled from his own lips, a half-formed curse in the dark of night when the headaches and apparitions were at their worst. It was somehow almost funny that the man who destroyed his world had helped to keep this young woman in it. And by proxy, given him a chance at a new life.

"Did Stroud… heal you?" he asked.

"Oh no," she laughed. The bitter undertones to her voice did not escape him. "He conscripted me. The Joining makes you immune to the taint, along with a whole bunch of fun perks you'll find out about soon enough."

"Ah. I see. You did not choose this life, then."

She gave him a hard look. "I chose life. This just happened to be the only one left to me."

_Well,_ thought Cullen, _at least we have that in common._

He crossed the small room to the table and ran his fingers over the smooth leather of the pouch. "This is worth a fortune," he murmured. "The mage Anders… must consider your life a great debt indeed."

The Warden snorted and gathered her raven hair back into a knot at the nape of her neck. "He's lucky Stroud didn't kill him on sight for deserting. I know now what a risk he took in even showing his face to the other Wardens." She strode over and plucked the lyrium out of his reach. He watched it disappear into her robe with a pang of jealousy. "It's not a job you get to walk away from. Best not to get used to the idea that it is."

Cullen nodded mutely. If it hadn't truly sunk in before, it did now; he could not turn back from this. Soon enough he would be a Warden. He would live the rest of his days as a Warden, and he would die as a Warden.

Ah well. Better than dying an addict.

"Enough talking," Bethany stated, interrupting his reverie. "We have work to do."

He sat back down on the cot and watched silently while she worked. She was focused and efficient, her demeanor telling the story of every challenge faced, every battle fought, every lesson learned in her life. She pushed her sleeves up to chalk a circle on the ground and he noted that her tanned skin was marred by several raised, pale scars. No, he mused, this mage was no sheltered girl in a high tower. She was a warrior who had faced death and was beyond caring. That, no doubt, made her all the more terrible and deadly in combat.

And yet, something tugged at him while he looked at her. Her face held a gentle determination that belied a kind of innocence, and the way she chewed her lip, brow furrowed in concentration as she prepared the ritual, sparked something feral in him. It was the same part of him that wanted Amell all those years ago.

He coughed and shifted uncomfortably. The realism of his hallucinations had rekindled a fire he thought had long since burned out. And now, she came to him again, but transformed; flesh and blood, hardened, and armored in bitterness and discontent. He found himself intoxicated by the contradiction of it all.

And there was nothing to stop him this time.

She looked up at him then, and he pushed the thought to furthest depths of his mind, hoping desperately that she couldn't see through him the way Amell always did.

"It's ready." Her voice was bland, almost resigned. "Come sit in the circle."

He obeyed mutely and did what he could to conceal the signs of his arousal as he sat down on the floor. Blessedly, she wasn't paying much attention to him at all, her attention instead focused on the bowl sitting in her lap. It was filled with some kind of strange liquid, not quite the color of lyrium but singing with power nonetheless. His need called to him like a lover, told him to take the bowl, to do terrible things, but tensed his body in resolve and held fast against it.

The young Warden met his gaze and took up a runestone in each hand. "Now empty your mind. Create the void as if you were preparing to drain my power. And then listen."

He nodded and closed his eyes, slipping into the comfortable templar discipline like an old pair of pajamas. It was hardly an effort for him after a dozen years of training, even in strange circumstances such as these. He felt nothing, thought nothing, just focused on the steady rhythms of his breathing.

Softly, Bethany started to murmur. She spoke in a language he didn't understand, or perhaps it wasn't a language at all, just a litany of sounds that tumbled through the space between them. He opened his mind to it, soothed by the lilt and cadence of those words, until a sudden crack made him jump. His eyes snapped open and he saw she had beat the stones together. She did it again and again, setting into a percussive rhythm that drove the litany forward.

He felt himself drifting into the strange music of the spell. His face grew flushed, his skin tingled, and he struggled to keep his eyes open. Every crack of the stones was a beat in his heart, a breath in his chest, and her ceaseless murmur the heated rush of blood through his body.

Slowly he became aware that a connection was forming between them. It was he could feel her as an extension of himself, matching every breath - no, _driving_ every breath, their union the crucible of his existence. Only through their oneness could they survive, two hearts beating in sync. He gave himself over to it fully, joyfully, as if he had never known anything else.

And then the stones shattered in her hands and his breath seized in his chest. He struggled to remember how to keep his heart beating without that rhythm driving him, compelling his life-force. The crumbled pieces slipped through her fingers to splash, sizzling, into the bowl of liquid. She swayed and he felt a nauseous lurch as some kind of cloud rose from the bowl and swirled in the air between them.

"Breathe!" she gasped, before slumping to the floor.

Against all his instincts, like a newborn babe getting ready to squall for the first time, he sucked the vapors into his hungry lungs. A sensation unlike anything he'd ever known flooded through him, pumped fresh blood through his veins and flooded the inside of his skull with light. Every part of him was for the first time alive, along with a new sense he could not yet explain.

"Oh Bethany," he moaned in wonder. "What _is_ that sensation? It's like a hundred suns are shining inside my head."

"Idiot," she rasped from the floor, still too weak to even prop herself up. "What the hell do you think it is?"

He stared at her in awe. The need that consumed him was utterly erased by this new existence. He could see in total clarity just how much his addiction had ruled his life, shaped the man that he was. He felt so free, so very free, for the first time since he was a child dreaming of being a knight.

Cullen now knew beyond any doubt that this was the greatest gift the Maker could ever give to his creations.

He jumped to his feet with a yell of elation that was quickly transformed to panic when he realized the bed was on fire.

"Oh, Maker's _balls_," he swore frantically and looked to Bethany, who had just finished pulling herself up into a sitting position. "How did I do that? How do I stop it?"

She sighed and spoke a word that extinguished the flames as quickly as they had come. "You're like a baby. You have the power but no tools to control it."

"_Maker_," he repeated and shook his head numbly. "I'm afraid to move."

"Just help me onto what's left of the bed, would you?"

Happy to flex a muscle he actually knew how to use, he offered her his arm and helped her up. She pushed aside the singed blanket and sank onto the cot with a groan. He sat next to her and, unsure what to do, placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Are you… all right?" he asked tentatively. It occurred to him that he had never asked what the consequences of this ritual would be for her.

"Yes," she sighed, cradling her head in her hands. "Just… a splitting headache, that's all." She rubbed her eyes and looked up at him. "The ritual is a link, as I'm sure you noticed. Whenever I'm near you, a portion of my power will be siphoned to you."

He frowned at the pain in her eyes. "Does it hurt?"

"It's not pleasant," she admitted. "But nothing you templars do to us ever is."

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, and for the first time, he really meant it. The magic already felt like a part of him, a new limb he didn't quite know how to flex, and the idea of having it ripped away from him against his will seemed quite unpleasant.

"I'll get used to it." Bethany reached up to grab his chin and before he could protest, she was turning his head side to side to inspect him. "You look better," she mused. "That crazed look in your eyes is gone."

Cullen gave her an embarrassed smile. "You mean you don't like crazy men? Because from what I hear, women actually find that sort of thing quite appealing."

To his complete and utter amazement, she actually laughed. For just a moment her mask slipped and he could see her true face. "I like crazy templars about as much as you like crazy mages."

He pondered that. "You have a point. Are we really that bad?"

"Oh yes. Worse." He could feel her body relaxing slowly under his hand. Whatever sensation the spell had caused in her seemed to be easing up, much to his relief. When she looked up at him again it was exhaustion, not pain, that shadowed her eyes.

They sat that way for a while, not speaking or moving as she recovered from her exertion and he absorbed everything that had happened. "Do you want to lie down?" he asked after she almost nodded off on his shoulder.

"Yes please," she murmured, shifting to kick off her boots.

"But, ah… Bethany?"

"Mmmm?" she rubbed her eyes and gave him a drowsy look.

He gave her a sheepish look and pointed behind her. "Can you put out the bed again?"

Her eyes widened as she looked over his shoulder at the smoldering blanket. "Bless my _ass_, Cullen," she cursed, squelching the flames with a flick of her wrist. "Tomorrow, lessons. Tonight, you're sleeping on the floor."


End file.
